Shoto tried to reach for Midoriya, then Uraraka, and even Ida, whose white armour was blinding. The pit turned into a pool. Liquid filled his lungs and burned his nostrils. He choked, but he could still breathe. Agony coursed through him, thrumming stronger than iron; he was dying yet alive, more alive than he'd been in over ten years, though his journey with Midoriya and the others had given him a taste of what life could be like.

A soft yellow light blinked in his periphery. Shoto turned toward the firefly—but it wasn't a firefly. The light grew, enveloping him and overtaking the water and the pain. And then a scene unfolded before him.

The tatami mats were a familiar luxury, one of the few things that Shoto missed from the palace. A jade plate of jiaozi rested on a low, ornate wooden table with chopsticks placed neatly on the side. The chopsticks shuddered and rolled off as the table shuddered, the victuals crawling along the jade. Behind the matted doors, a man yelled and a child scratched at the expensive imported mats. Shoto knew this because he had been the child; this was his memory.

Shoto passed through the doors as though he were a ghost. He saw himself at age five, not yet scarred.

The boy is on his hands and knees, heaving on the floor. His father stands behind him with arms crossed. His barking voice causes the boy to flinch. "Get up! Your siblings have already disgraced themselves. Don't follow their example, Shoto Todoroki. Your mother is getting weak. If you fail, I'll have to take on a concubine. Do you know what that is?"

He doesn't. It sounds like a curse too horrible to inflict on anyone, even this monster of a king.

"Never mind, Shoto. Get up! You're meant to be a king. Greater things are waiting for you, boy."

"Yes," Shoto said. As a child, he'd been silent, docile, accepting all the unfairness that royalty heaped on him. Now, he unsheathed his sword. "Greater things are waiting for me, Father."

He stepped forward and plunged his sword into Enji Todoroki's heart. Enji's turquoise eyes widened in shock. He spat blood that evaporated as soon as it landed on Shoto's hands.

The illusion faded, replaced by Ida, who had lifted his visor. He wielded a diamond-steel sword that matched Yaoyorozu's. His dark blue-grey eyes stared at a younger version of himself.

The boy takes a squirrel and snaps its spine in his bare hands. "You're Cardinal Four." He tosses the dead animal to a pile of three other animals: a frog with a stick through its stomach, a baby fox that reeked of poison, a sparrow with a torn wing—the poor songbird fluttered its remaining wing, vainly trying to fly away.

Shoto spoke before he could stop himself. "You're twisted."

"I was. Your lady changed that."

"Die, Cardinals!" The boy takes a long branch and drives it through each animal, a vicious, mad look in his greyish eyes. "You hurt Big Brother Tensei, so I'll hurt you four times over! Eight times over! Over and over and over..."

Behind him is a humble dwelling. Through the grimy window, a bedridden man struggles to breathe. Bruises line his elbows and sallow cheeks. Jaundice grips his face. He looks barely alive; it's hard to accept he isn't even 30.

"I'm not here for revenge," Ida told Shoto. "That isn't what Yaoyorozu would want. Or you, prince. Or Uraraka and Midoriya."

Ida walked over to himself and placed his free hand on the younger boy's shoulder. "Be at peace, my other self."

Then this illusion faded as well. The tranquility of the tatami mats and the woods disappeared, supplanted by bustling carriages, sharpening blades, and hollering merchants.

A large man looms over a teenage girl, pinning her to a brick wall. She squirms in his grip; his mouth approaches her neck.

Even from here, Shoto could smell the vile man's reeking breath.

Ida waved his sword around; Shoto ducked to avoid getting beheaded. "How reprehensible! Begone, you!"

Unlike when Shoto impaled Enji, Ida's sword did not end the vision. Shoto put a hand on Ida's shoulder padding. "This isn't for us to intervene."

"Then whose memory is this?"

The girl didn't resemble Uraraka or Asui. Shoto looked around at the crowd. Most of them ignored the assault in the alley, too busy with their own wares. A few adults tittered. A boy watched silently.

He looks around 13 or 14. Black hair falls into his eyes. His lips tremble in a tightly pressed line. His hands shake, his fists clenched.

"Not anymore!"

Kirishima shoved past the boy and shot the girl's attacker; his dark eyes blazed with fury, and the cut on his right eyelid seemed to stretch with his grimace. Two bullets punctured holes in the man's skull, blasting brains that splattered onto his tiger-striped scarf.

"Aw, man, my man made this for me!"

"It'll fade on its own." Already, the viscera was disappearing from the cloth without even leaving a stain.

"It feels gross, though." Kirishima took off the scarf and stuffed it into his pocket. "I'll wash it later." He looked up at Shoto and Ida with twitching eyes. "I'm ashamed you saw me like that."

Shoto shook his head. "We've all been in—" he glanced at Ida, who kept a neutral expression—"compromising positions."

Kirishima rubbed his hands together. "Let's see what 'compromising position' my man is in."

Ida harrumphed. "I cannot fathom Bakugo any lowlier than how we already know him."

Shoto adjusted his sleeves. His hands were getting sweaty. "I don't know. We all have dark secrets."

Bakugo and Midoriya stand on the rooftop of the borough cathedral. Bakugo's boots grip the slanted roof securely while Midoriya clings onto the spire for dear life. Midoriya's jacket and Bakugo's cape blow to the side; the wind makes the light-haired boy's hair even unrulier than usual. The dragon tattoo spirals down his right arm.

Kirishima startled. "Bakugo said he got that inked a few days before he left town."

"So, Kacchan, what... what did you want to talk about?"

"I heard you talking to Uraraka and Ida."

Now Ida tensed. "Oh. Oh."

"Is it about pudding night? Do you want to join us?"

"No, it wasn't about pudding night."

"Hell no. It's the dumber part you said, something only a dumb, defenseless Izuku—a Deku—could think of."

So that was where Midoriya's nickname came from. Shoto wondered why Uraraka called him that, then.

"You want to be a fucking hero."

"I want to make people smile. Is that wrong?"

"You're weak. You can't be a hero. That's why I asked you to come here."

"I'm... sorry? I don't understand."

Bakugo leans in close, almost threatening to push Midoriya off. "Jump."

The illusion ended on its own. A petite girl with waist-length silver curls and a long, curving horn above her right eyebrow wrenched Bakugo's arm. She looked no older than them, but her broken voice contained decades of pain. "You dare try to hurt me in my own fortress? I am Eri, the Cardinal of Death."